Moderation Questions

Recent events have shown that this is only half true.

Hopefully rickroll will use his week off productively and treat us to another meme masterpiece on his return.

Nobody has been banned for disagreeing with my mod decisions. People have been banned for doing so with insults or personal attacks or by ignoring numerous requests to take certain type posts to the designated thread. Just because we are mods doesnt mean people can say anything they want to us. Disagreement doesn't equal disrespect. Disrespect equals disrespect. Choosing to deliberately and repeatedly violate a policy isnt excused just because one doesnt agree with it.

At times a poster will report an issue with another poster, and then close by saying words like "I don't want anyone banned, I just want them to stop". And that's a nice thought. Mods have essentially two tools available to influence posters to stop violating guidelines. One is warnings. The other is bans. Unfortunately some posters refuse to take a warning to heart, for whatever reason, and a ban becomes necessary.

There's a third tool you could use (that should be your first tool imo) if you think a poster has gone too far with personal attacks - PM them, explain why their post is problematic and ask them to consider editing it.

This is way less confrontational than deleting/editing posts or banning people.

To be fair, that only works if browser picks up on the infraction and the poster receives his PM within the editing window (30 minutes?)

Yes, but it's my understanding that mods can edit posts on their behalf any time. All it would take is a short note to that effect and a quick c/p job.

PMs fall under the category of warnings. They are done often, but not announced. Sometimes, if there are multiple people getting carried away in a thread, or if is an issue that has surfaced frequently, a public post in a thread will also be used as a warning.

I still think Browser does ok. Ive just seen so much worse modding on certain other parts of the internet so as long as he isnt part of fascist clique looking to ban all opposing viewpoints then hes good enough for me.

the main problem is consistency. posters are allowed to repeatedly attack me with vile insults and if I respond at even 5% to their hate and ignorance then its gg.

Can confirm I have received warnings via PM.

A mod is doing a really bad job and people are providing plenty of examples in the mod thread. People understand the whole site is of low importance now and nobody outside of a couple dozen regs care about the politics subforum. Seems like people are behaving in accordance with what you say.

I've had a warning via PM too. I wasn't sure if this practice was adopted by all mods or just the one who PMd me.

Not everything is about you, Victor!

I care about twoplustwo as a whole and don’t think, even with a small audience, the politics forum should be a race to the bottom. I actually think that the small number of posters here is a good indication that we shouldn’t let the same loudest 10 voices drown out the politics forum.

Mods can edit a post at any time while posters only have a half hour window. When I first started modding here, if there was a post would several good points in it, but then a one sentence personal insult, I would edit out the insult and leave a comment in the edit box. To my surprise I received a great deal of pushback on that, with posters insisting that there was something nefarious about a mod" ninja editing" someones post, and that a mod should either delete a post entirely or leave it alone. So this has become the standard approach now.

That's why people are warned that if you don't want to lose all your work, don't mix in good stuff with bad.

right. but a lot of anger from posters is bc they are finally being modded for their insults or finally feeling the capriciousness that some of us have already experienced.

Right, but I was suggesting the edit would be in lieu of the poster being able to edit their own post after the half hour window had shut, and would be a c/p of the poster's new form of words in their PM reply to the mod request to tone it down.

It absolutely is infuriating to have someone edit your posts without your permission and it feels analogous to someone putting their hand over your mouth selectively.

If a poster refuses to agree to tone down a particularly egregiously abusive post and says they'd prefer it be deleted altogether, that's simple enough to execute. But, I dunno, it would have to be exceptionally bad in my book to warrant that. Have you heard how people sometimes quarrel in real life?

That procedure is way too time intensive for a mod to possibly follow. And we sure cant wait around for a poster to decide how he wants to reword an offensive post, or whether he wants to or not. A poster has 30 mins to reconsider if they think what they posted was out of line. After that, a mod will just make the call as to whether to leave the post up, with a warning to be more aware next time, or if the post warrants deletion. And if it does warrant deletion, then that usually indicates that it was bad enough that the poster realizes it does as well. And after the post is deleted the poster can still post his revised version in place of the deleted text if desired. No need for a mod to play middleman on that

Yeah then you have to expect a lot of pushback I'm afraid. People (rightly imo) see their posts as their property and don't like others editing or deleting them, and especially don't like being banned for breaches of rules imposed on them that they may not even agree with by a moderation style they didn't want or vote for.

That's a dictatorship.

Another vile attack victor must defend himself against.

Where this whole thing is complete nonsense is bad faith posters are not being punished for deliberately engaging in bad faith, completely pivoting to their next bad faith talking point before engaging in conversation in why their original was complete bullshit

And I am for some reason expected to humor knowingly bad faith snowflakes in good faith and ask them how this makes them feel rather than treat bad faith the only way it should be treated: with mockery, not validation

I realize the mod has final say, which to be clear says way more about you than it does me, but if bad faith goes with impunity and my only options are to ignore the user or engage them in equally bad faith and get banned, at best you’re deliberately humoring bad actors and turning this sub forum into a cesspool of ‘you can say whatever deliberate lies you want and if anyone calls you out on it I’ll go ahead and ban them’

Which, you know, cool

It's a private company with its own terms and conditions that everyone must agree to abide by in order to register. Among lots of other things, they include:

So clearly posts can be edited, deleted or posters banned by the site whether they happen to like it or agree with site policies. This is hardly a unique aspect of twoplustwo.

My guy, elon musk aint a role model

Anyway, obviously I’ll only get myself in trouble, so back to sports I go. Enjoy!

Big ups ignoring the substantive post and choosing to respond only to the snarky one

I sense a pattern

But ya, you’re probably right. Keep on keepin on

I was actually responding to both, but just hit the quote button on the latest one.